Labor Recruitment and Immigration in the Eastern North Carolina Food Industry
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Published
Jan 4, 2012
David Griffith
Abstract
The food industry has been responsible for much of the immigration into North Carolina, with fruit and vegetable agriculture and factories for processing poultry, pickles, pork, and seafood central to the economies of the state’s eastern coastal corridor. Different sectors of the food industry, however, influence communities of the region differently and have varied influences on the communities from which immigrants come. This article compares three branches of North Carolina’s food industry – 1. poultry, pickle, and pork producers; 2. seafood producers; and 3. fresh fruit and vegetable producers – in terms of their labor recruitment methods and how those methods have influenced receiving and sending communities. It concludes with a brief consideration of the relationship between immigrants and new food movements oriented toward eating healthier, more locally, and more organically.
How to Cite
Griffith, D. . (2012) “Labor Recruitment and Immigration in the Eastern North Carolina Food Industry ”, The International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food. Paris, France, 19(1), pp. 102–118. doi: 10.48416/ijsaf.v19i1.239.
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References
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Fink, L. (2001) The Maya of Morgantown. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press.
Fischer, E. and Benson, P. (2006) Broccoli and Desire. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
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Griffith, D. (1987) Nonmarket labor processes in an advanced capitalist economy, American Anthropologist,
89(4), pp. 838–852.
Griffith, D. (1993) Jones’s Minimal: Low-wage Labor in the United States. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Griffith, D. (1995a) Labor in the seafood industry: an overview with special attention to Pamlico County,
North Carolina, in: D. Stull, M. Broadwa y and D. Griffith (eds) Any Way They Cut It : Meatpacking and
Small Town America, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, pp. 153–186.
Griffith, D. (1995b) Hay trabajo: labor in the poultry industry of Northern Georgia, in: D. Stull, M. Broadwa
y and D. Griffith (eds) Any Way They Cut It : Meatpacking and Small Town America, Lawrence, KS:
University Press of Kansas, pp. 129–152.
Griffith, D. (1999) The Estuary’s Gift: A Mid-Atlantic Cultural Biography. University Park, PA: Penn State
University Press.
Griffith, D. (2005) Rural industry and latino immigration and settlement in North Carolina, in: V. Zúñiga
and R. Hernández-Leon (eds) New Destinations of Mexican Immigration in the United States: Community
Formation, Local Responses, and Inter-group Relations, New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Griffith, D. (2006) American Guestworkers: Jamaicans and Mexicans in the United States. University Park, PA:
Penn State University Press.
Griffith, D. (2008) New midwesterners, new southerners: immigration experiences in four rural U.S. settings,
in: D. Massey (ed.) New Faces in New Places: The Changing Geography of American Immigration, New
York: Russell Sage Foundation, pp. 179–210.
Griffith, D. (2009) The moral economy of tobacco, American Anthropologist, 111, pp. 432–442.
Griffith, D., Kissam, E., Camposeco, J., Garcia, A., Pfeffer, M., Runsten, D. and Valdés Pizzini, M. (1995)
Working Poor: Farmworkers in the United States. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Hackenberg, R., Griffith, D., Stull, D., Gouveia, L. and Broadwa y, M. (1993) Creating a disposable labor
force, Aspen Institute Quarterly, 5(2), pp. 78–101.
Hahamovitch, C. (1999) The Fruits of their Labor. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press.
Heppel, M. (1983) Harvesting the Crops of Others. Ph.D. dissertation, American University.
Heppel, M. and Amendola, S. (1992) Immigration Reform and Perishable Crop Agriculture. Washington, DC:
University Press of America.
Kingsolver, A. (2007) Farmers and farmworkers: two centuries of strategic alterity in Kentucky’s tobacco
fields, Critique of Anthropology, 21(1), pp. 87–102.
Massey, D., Alarcon, R., Durand, J. and González, H. (1987) Return to Aztlan: The Social Process of International
Migration from Western Mexico. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
McEwen, M., Baird, M., Pasvogel, A. and Gallegos, G. (2007) Health-illness transition among Mexican
immigrant women with diabetes, Family and Community Health, 30, pp. 201–212.
Nestle, M. (2001) Food Politics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
North Carolina Employment Security Commission (2006) Agricultural Labor Statistics. Raleigh, NC: NCESC.
Portes, A. and Zhou, M. (1993) The new second generation: segmented assimilation and its variants
among post-1965 immigrant youth, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 530,
pp. 74–96.
Richman, K. (2005) Migration and Vodou. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.
Roseberry, W. (1983) Coffee and Capitalism in the Venezuelan Andes. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Schlosser, E. (2001) Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All American Meal. New York: Houghton Mifflin
Company.
Skaggs, J. (1985) Prime Cut: Livestock Raising and Meatpacking in the United States, 1607–1983. College Station,
TX: Texas A & M Press.
Smith, B.E. and Winders, J. (2007) ‘We’re here to stay’: economic restructuring, Latino migration, and
place-making in the U.S. South, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 33, pp. 60–72.
Striffler, S. (2005) Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America’s Favorite Food. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Stull, D., Broadwa y, M. and Griffith, D. (1995) Any Way They Cut It: Meatpacking and Small Town America.
Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.
Thompson, E.P. (1971) The moral economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth century, Past and Present,
50(1), pp. 76–136.
Amendola, S. and Griffith, D. (1992) Labor in the South Carolina Peach Industry, Research Report to the Commission
on Agricultural Workers. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Arps, S., Contreras, R. and Fernandez, L. (2009) Understanding Diabetes Risk among Latinos in Eastern North
Carolina: Perceptions Regarding Nutrition and Physical Activity. Paper presented at the Southern Anthropology
Society Meeting, Wilmington, NC.
Benson, P. (2008) Good, clean tobacco, American Ethnologist, 35(3), pp. 357–379.
Burns, A. (1995) Maya in Exile. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Commission on Agricultural Workers (1992) Final Report of the Commission on Agricultural Workers. Washington,
DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Crosthwa it, R. (2009) ‘I’m a Migrant?’ Mexican H-2B Labor in the South Texas Oil and Gas Industry. Paper
delivered at the Society for Applied Anthropology Meetings, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Department of Public Instruction (2009) North Carolina Public Schools Statistical Profile. Raleigh, NC: State
Board of Education, Department of Public Instruction.
Duany, J. (2001) Puerto Rican Nation on the Move. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press.
Fennelly, K. (2008) Immigration in the Minnesota meatpacking industry, in: D. Massey (ed.) New Faces in
New Places: The Changing Geography of American Immigration, New York: Russell Sage Foundation, pp.
211–231.
Fink, L. (2001) The Maya of Morgantown. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press.
Fischer, E. and Benson, P. (2006) Broccoli and Desire. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Grey, M. (1999) Immigrants, migration, and worker turnover at the Hog Pride Pork packing plant, Human
Organization, 58(1), pp. 16–27.
Griffith, D. (1987) Nonmarket labor processes in an advanced capitalist economy, American Anthropologist,
89(4), pp. 838–852.
Griffith, D. (1993) Jones’s Minimal: Low-wage Labor in the United States. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Griffith, D. (1995a) Labor in the seafood industry: an overview with special attention to Pamlico County,
North Carolina, in: D. Stull, M. Broadwa y and D. Griffith (eds) Any Way They Cut It : Meatpacking and
Small Town America, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, pp. 153–186.
Griffith, D. (1995b) Hay trabajo: labor in the poultry industry of Northern Georgia, in: D. Stull, M. Broadwa
y and D. Griffith (eds) Any Way They Cut It : Meatpacking and Small Town America, Lawrence, KS:
University Press of Kansas, pp. 129–152.
Griffith, D. (1999) The Estuary’s Gift: A Mid-Atlantic Cultural Biography. University Park, PA: Penn State
University Press.
Griffith, D. (2005) Rural industry and latino immigration and settlement in North Carolina, in: V. Zúñiga
and R. Hernández-Leon (eds) New Destinations of Mexican Immigration in the United States: Community
Formation, Local Responses, and Inter-group Relations, New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Griffith, D. (2006) American Guestworkers: Jamaicans and Mexicans in the United States. University Park, PA:
Penn State University Press.
Griffith, D. (2008) New midwesterners, new southerners: immigration experiences in four rural U.S. settings,
in: D. Massey (ed.) New Faces in New Places: The Changing Geography of American Immigration, New
York: Russell Sage Foundation, pp. 179–210.
Griffith, D. (2009) The moral economy of tobacco, American Anthropologist, 111, pp. 432–442.
Griffith, D., Kissam, E., Camposeco, J., Garcia, A., Pfeffer, M., Runsten, D. and Valdés Pizzini, M. (1995)
Working Poor: Farmworkers in the United States. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Hackenberg, R., Griffith, D., Stull, D., Gouveia, L. and Broadwa y, M. (1993) Creating a disposable labor
force, Aspen Institute Quarterly, 5(2), pp. 78–101.
Hahamovitch, C. (1999) The Fruits of their Labor. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press.
Heppel, M. (1983) Harvesting the Crops of Others. Ph.D. dissertation, American University.
Heppel, M. and Amendola, S. (1992) Immigration Reform and Perishable Crop Agriculture. Washington, DC:
University Press of America.
Kingsolver, A. (2007) Farmers and farmworkers: two centuries of strategic alterity in Kentucky’s tobacco
fields, Critique of Anthropology, 21(1), pp. 87–102.
Massey, D., Alarcon, R., Durand, J. and González, H. (1987) Return to Aztlan: The Social Process of International
Migration from Western Mexico. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
McEwen, M., Baird, M., Pasvogel, A. and Gallegos, G. (2007) Health-illness transition among Mexican
immigrant women with diabetes, Family and Community Health, 30, pp. 201–212.
Nestle, M. (2001) Food Politics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
North Carolina Employment Security Commission (2006) Agricultural Labor Statistics. Raleigh, NC: NCESC.
Portes, A. and Zhou, M. (1993) The new second generation: segmented assimilation and its variants
among post-1965 immigrant youth, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 530,
pp. 74–96.
Richman, K. (2005) Migration and Vodou. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.
Roseberry, W. (1983) Coffee and Capitalism in the Venezuelan Andes. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Schlosser, E. (2001) Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All American Meal. New York: Houghton Mifflin
Company.
Skaggs, J. (1985) Prime Cut: Livestock Raising and Meatpacking in the United States, 1607–1983. College Station,
TX: Texas A & M Press.
Smith, B.E. and Winders, J. (2007) ‘We’re here to stay’: economic restructuring, Latino migration, and
place-making in the U.S. South, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 33, pp. 60–72.
Striffler, S. (2005) Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America’s Favorite Food. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Stull, D., Broadwa y, M. and Griffith, D. (1995) Any Way They Cut It: Meatpacking and Small Town America.
Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.
Thompson, E.P. (1971) The moral economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth century, Past and Present,
50(1), pp. 76–136.
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